Posts Tagged ‘Scott Pruitt’

With Scott Pruitt now installed at the EPA, what is arguably one of the most successful government agencies ever—remember the dousing of the Cuyahoga River fire? Or the reduction of smog in LA?—is now itself gasping, on life support.

Those environmental advances were in large part because the EPA was around to protect the nation’s air, water, ground and health. Now it’s pretty clear that an emasculated EPA under Pruitt will have a tough time merely surviving, rather than continuing its work. For one thing one of Barrack Obama’s boldest environmental legacies, the Clean Power Plan, is going away.

In his first interview (with the Wall Street Journal) as EPA administrator, Pruitt said he wants to refocus the agency on a more narrow role. Pruitt said he expects to quickly withdraw both the Clean Power Plan and the Waters of the United States Rule, the Obama administration’s attempt to clarify the EPA’s regulatory authority under the Clean Water Act.

“There’s a very simple reason why this needs to happen: Because the courts have seriously called into question the legality of those rules,” Pruitt said in the interview, as reported by ThinkProgress.

Simple?

ThinkProgress reported that Pruitt has challenged the mainstream scientific consensus on climate change, arguing that there is significant debate on whether it is happening and whether humans are the primary cause: “in reality there is little to no debate about those questions – 97 percent of actively publishing climate scientists agree that climate change is both happening and that human activity is contributing to it.

“There will be a rule-making process to withdraw those rules, and that will kick off a process,” Pruitt told the Wall Street Journal. “And part of that process is a very careful review of a fundamental question: Does EPA even possess the tools, under the Clean Air Act, to address this? It’s a fair question to ask if we do, or whether there in fact needs to be a congressional response to the climate issue.” In 2007, the Supreme Court ruled in Massachusetts vs. EPA that the EPA does, in fact, possess the authority under the Clean Air Act to regulate greenhouse gases as air pollutants.

As Oklahoma Attorney General, Pruitt “disbanded the office’s Environmental Protection Unit, dedicated to pursuing environmental law violations, and pursued only three environmental enforcement cases during his six years as Attorney General,” ThinkProgress reported. In addition:

“Pruitt also said that, as EPA administrator, he would focus on creating regulatory certainty that will help industry and spur job growth. Pruitt has long been a friend of the fossil fuel industry — emails revealed during a 2014 investigation by the New York Times showed Pruitt sending a letter of complaint to the EPA, in his role as Oklahoma Attorney General, drafted by Devon Energy, the largest energy company in Oklahoma.

The night before Pruitt was confirmed as EPA administrator by the Senate, a judge in Oklahoma ordered Pruitt’s office to release thousands of emails between the nominee and oil and gas companies. The Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) had requested access to those emails two years ago, but Pruitt’s office refused. The office has until Tuesday to release some 3,000 documents, which may reveal more coordination between Pruitt and industry actors.”

Those documents likely will be alarming and reveal much more about Pruitt’s ties to the fossil fuel industry, but will they affect the EPA’s future? Get set for a bumpy four years.